West Papua: Statement on Independence Day, July 1

Ladies and gentlemen of the International
Media,We are releasing for your dissemination a joint
statement by Jonah Wenda, the Spokesman of the Military
Council of West Papua National Liberation Army and the
Secretariat of WPNCL. This is in conjunction with the
commemoration of 1st of July, the day when the Independence
Movement, the OPM proclaimed West Papuan independence in
1971.

S T A T E M E N T

West Papuan people in the
country and abroad are commemorating first of July, a very
historic day in the West Papuan struggle for self
determination and independence. All the activities on the
day will be peaceful. In different parts of the country the
people will commemorate the day in many peaceful ways
depending on the local conditions. These will include
prayers, rallies, seminars, film shows, displays and
marches. In Jayapura, the Capital of Papua Provinve, the
commemoration will take place at the cemetery of the late
Theys Elluay in Sentani. There will be prayers and speeches
about the struggle and hopes for the future. There are
concerns that the Indonesian Military and its Militias may
provoke violence as they have always done in the past but
this will not deter our activities. We therefore forewarn
the Media to be on alert for such eventuality. The Papuan
people are more determined than ever to claim their
independence. What you will see on the 1st of July is part
of the many more actions yet to come. WEST PAPUA, AN ISSUE
WHO’S TIME HAS COME.

On 1st of July, 40 years ago under
the leadership of the late Brig.Gen. Seth Rumkorem and
Excellency Jacob Prai (exiled in Sweden) a proclamation of
independence was declared complete with a Constitution, a
Senate and Provisional government. The leadership of the
Movement had come to that decision after careful
consideration of the following historical facts:

(1). By
1960 West Papua was well and truly in the process of
decolonization. A decolonization plan introduced by Dr.
Joseph Luns, the Foreign Minister of the Netherlands won 51%
votes in the United Nations.

(2). West Papuans had
already established Political Parties and had general
elections where an embryonic Parliament called the Nieuw
Guinea Raad or the New Guinea Council was established.
Members of the South Pacific Commission (This body had been
expanded to become the Pacific Islands Forum), Australia,
New Zealand, France, Great Britain and of course the host,
the Netherlands attended the inauguration of this embryonic
Parliament on 5 April 1961. USA declined the invitation but
had voted earlier for the decolonization plan at the United
Nations.

(3). The New Guinea Council produced a 10 years
development and localization program that will end with full
independence by 1970 (This plan was adopted from the
political manifesto of the Papua National Party, the PARNA).
The Netherlands fully agreed to implement the plan.

(4).
Spurred by the euphoria of independence, the Council
proceeded to create the national symbols for the future
Republic of West Papua, they are, the Morning Star flag, the
National Anthem, ‘my land Papua,’ Court of Arms and
proposed that from that day on the Territory should be
called Papua (West Papua). These symbols were accepted by
the Colonial government and on the 1st of December 1961 the
Morning Star flag was officially raised alongside the three
colors flag of the Netherlands including the singing of the
national anthems of both countries accompanied by Marine
Corps band and parade by the military including Papuans’
own Volunteer Corps, the PVK and police forces with fly pass
by the Royal Dutch Air Force. This decolonization process
came to an abrupt stop because of the United States
sponsored New York Agreement to end the escalation of
conflict and possible open war between the Netherlands and
Indonesia over West Papua. The elected West Papuan leaders
were not involved or even consulted.

The Agreement granted
Indonesia a TEMPORARY MANDATE to administer the Territory
pending a REFERENDUM in 1969 where the Papuan people would
be allowed to freely and democratically vote on their
political status. Indonesia never respected the agreement.
It annexed West Papua to become the 26the Province of the
Republic the same way it had annexed East Timor. In 1969
Indonesia organized a fraudulent exercise where 1022 tribal
leaders representing 800,000 Papuans were forced to accept
integration. Regardless of the travesty conduct in the
implementation and serious concern by some Africa countries
the UN endorsed a resolution cosponsored by Indonesia and
the Netherlands for the results to be accepted. The UN
accepted the results with qualified note that the method
used was according to Indonesian practice. Another way of
saying, it was not according to the UN standard procedure in
a referendum.

In view of this GROSS INJUSTICE the West
Papuan independence movement, the OPM took the only option
available to it at the time, a UNILATERAL PROCLAMATION OF
INDEPENDENCE. For obvious reasons the Provisional government
did not operate as it should have but the integrity it
represents remain today in the hearts of every West Papuan.
We will continue to strive for our independence.

Since
Indonesian occupying forces arrived on our soil everything
went from bad to worse. Democratic institutions including
the elected Council and Political parties were dissolved;
freedom and the right of assembly including the right of
free opinion were prohibited. Any breach of this order will
carry a serious sentence of up to 20 years in jail. The
whole population is terrorized to submit to the will of the
government. The localization and self government schemes
during the Dutch administration were scrapped. In the past
10 years Indonesia attempted to corrupt the International
opinion, with a similar scheme called Special Autonomy. This
bogus special autonomy had died a natural death. It is open
book that Indonesia gave more importance to Colonist
settlement called Transmigration than basic social services
to the people. Year by year human right reports are filling
the files of responsible human right agencies including the
UN Human Rights Council but nothing is done about them.
Serious human right abuses at the level of crimes against
humanity are still in the hands of UNHC and Indonesia’s
own Human Rights Commission, KOMNAS HAM for the past 8
years. It is now almost half a century and there is no
better way to describe Indonesia’s legacy of subjugation
in West Papua than INDONESIAN COLONIAL
TERRORISM.

With a bit of luck the planet won’t be devastated by nuclear war in the next few days. US President Donald Trump will have begun to fixate on some other way to gratify his self-esteem – maybe by invading Venezuela or starting a war with Iran. More>>

ACLU: Step by step, point by point, the court laid out what has been clear from the start: The president promised to ban Muslims from the United States, and his executive orders are an attempt to do just that. More>>